


Monster Paint

by imfallingforyoureyes102



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: ARGUS, Daddy Oliver, F/M, Family, Funny, Monster Paint, Oliver and Diggle are left alone with the kids, Olivers daughter breaks his nose, Parent Felicity Smoak, Parent John Diggle, Parent Lyla Michaels, Parent Oliver Queen, Smoak Technologies, They try to scare them with walkie talkies and monsters, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 01:19:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imfallingforyoureyes102/pseuds/imfallingforyoureyes102
Summary: Felicity's on a business trip to Gotham and Lyla's basically in the middle of saving the world so it's Oliver and John who are left to take care of all the little baby Queens and Diggles. Problem is, the children manage to eat their way through two bags of candy, Oliver's nose has an ugly encounter with his daughter's chubby fist, and Diggle is all too interested in the supposed monster that knocks around in Oliver's and Felicity's bedroom late at night."I'm not going in there," Tommy says matter-of-factly, glancing at the darkened hallway leading to the bedrooms. "There'sth a monsther in there. Anya can go.""First of all," Oliver says, straining to keep from laughing at his son, "You're supposed to look out for your baby sister, not offer her up as monster bate. Second of all, what do you mean there's a monster in there?""I heard it last night in your room. Bug and I thought it was a ghosth, but it knocked on the wallsth too." Tommy nods his head up and down. "Hasth to be a monsther."





	Monster Paint

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends, here is a little out of character one shot where Felicity has a business trip and Lyla's off being a bad ass and Oliver and Dig are left alone to take care of the lil kiddos. Let me know what you think!

In retrospect, telling the kids that there is a monster living under the bed isn't their brightest idea. Then again, the prodigal duo has also had ideas that have left them in less than ideal situations (Felicity still can't stop bringing up the golfing incident and Oliver's broken thumb), but that's neither here nor there.

Felicity is out in Gotham on a business trip and Lyla’s doing her Argus thing and while Oliver and Dig enjoy every little second they spend as domesticated men and their children’s’ punching bags, they can't comprehend how  _they_ _are the ones_ left with a whole brood of children – an army, as Dig would say – both of Oliver's and one of Dig’s– when _they_ are also the two idiots that almost let Tommy eat dog food just last week.

Sure, the Green Arrow and Spartan are damn near experts in the art of warfare and weaponry, but they had never ever ever  _ever_  been outnumbered before – at least when it came to sticky hands and tiny feet.

"Tommy, put it down," Dig whispers to his nephew, eyeing the vase that Anya had painted for Felicity on Mother's Day. He doesn’t quite understand how this is already happening – Felicity had literally _just_ walked out the door – but it is and he can't help but feel a flash of absolute terror as he watches an impish grin spread across his godson's face. It's then Dig realizes that his whole life is probably going to consist of begging small humans to listen to him.

Tommy holds the vase above his head, swaying back and forth from his standing position on the arm of the couch. Dig stares at him with weary eyes.

"Come on buddy, drop it. Let's put it down."

He knows he shouldn't have said that – he and Oliver share genetics, and Oliver is a fucking idiot sometimes– and he nearly screams with horror as he watches Tommy weaken his grip on the vase.

It's like the next few seconds come in snapshots, and one second Dig is thinking up a whole new life of foraging and living off the land and formulating an escape route out of the city before he has to face Felicity, and the next, Oliver's hand is grabbing the vase while his other arm wraps firmly around his son.

Tommy let's out a huff of surprise as Oliver tilts him upside down, and while his father has a scowl on his face, Tommy can see the playful glint in his eyes.

"What,” Oliver lets out, his lips pressed tight in an attempt to look stern, “am I gonna do with you?” He raises his arm up, lifting Tommy up by his feet to bring him nearly eye-level to him.

"Give me candy," Tommy chimes back sweetly, face burning pink from being hung upside down. He bats his little hands at the vase, knowing full well that  _that_  is where his parents stash the goods.

Oliver can barely flip Tommy right side up and set him down before two bodies are crashing into his legs and, soon enough, both Anya and Sara have managed to knock the tall man over and pull him to the ground.

There're chubby hands punching him from every direction, trying to roll him over, and Oliver swears he catches an elbow to the knee, and all he can do is cover his face with his arms and let out a startled yell.

"Dig, help me out man," he manages to get out. He grunts when he feels a jab to his ribs. "They're tryna take me out!"

"Daddy, candy, gimmie, gimmie!"

"Candy? I want candy, Uncle Ollie!" Sara bellows, poking his side aggressively.

Oliver lets out a small  _ooff_  as Tommy crawls across him, and he stares up at the ceiling, trying to calculate just  _how_  three toddlers had managed to pin him down.

He's halfway there to admitting he's toast, burnt and buttered, when a small face pops into his line of view. He's already smiling large and wide as his vision focuses on his daughter's big blue eyes.

"I want candy too, Daddy," she says, mouth pulled into a toothy grin. "Pleasth, pleasth, pleasth?"

She pulls herself up on his chest, laying down so that her nose is almost touching his, and grabs his face between her two small hands.

"I'll love you forever and ever and I'll never  _ever_ tell Mommy that you let Bubby pee out the window last week," she reasons with a small whisper as her eyes go wide with earnest. Oliver is about to melt, the scene is too precious, and he watches as she juts her bottom lip out and scrunches her eyebrows.

_God, she looks so much like Felicity._

Her tactics almost work too, but as soon as Tommy sees his father's resolve breaking, he's diving on him within seconds, Sara following close behind.

"Oi!" Oliver yelps, wearily eyeing the proximity of Tommy's knee and his own precious cargo. "Watch it, you rascals. And you," he turns to face his daughter, "We aren't ever telling  _anyone_ about that little incident. Mrs. Porter still thinks it was raining that day."

He glares at her playfully as an innocent grin spreads across her face.

He can't keep the stern frown up for long, though, because Anya’s now clapping her hand against his mouth, asking him to hum, and Sara and Tommy have started drumming on his stomach and chest.

Oliver doesn't really know the moment he went from the Green Arrow, Star City’s real life fear factor, to a human instrument – he apparently doesn't know a lot these days – but he can't really think of a better position to be in.

He sits up quickly, letting out a gruff laugh as the kids yelp in surprise, and scoops all three in his arms, smooshing them to his chest and tickling the little feet that are kicking up a storm.

They're all quietly chanting  _candy_ , and Oliver knows it's only a matter of minutes before the situation goes from cute to unresolvable chaos – Tommy is already tugging at his hair – and Oliver turns his head to find the vase.

He nearly has a heart attack when he doesn't see it at first.

Sure, Felicity would be pissed that one of her most prized possessions is missing, but Oliver is more concerned about the funeral she'd have to plan for him if the three chanting imps in his lap don’t get their fix of sours and sugar.

"Dig, buddy," Oliver starts.

"Yuh."

"Did you see where I set down the - ,  _Oh for the love of God_."

"What?" Dig asks, not breaking eye contact with Oliver as he pours the last of the skittles into his mouth.

He reaches his hand back into the vase.

"Damn, we're out of candy."

Oliver keels over as Tommy's angry foot wedges right into his crotch.

" _WHAT?"_

**_***_ **

"No Dig, Felicity will  _kill_  me if I bring home another one of those hopper balls. She said one each is enough for everybody, although I agree with Sara – you do need a color selection," Oliver trails off as he realizes Dig isn't the only one who is listening to him. Three other girls around their age are giggling at him, all ditzy and red-faced.

He is too modest to realize that they're blushing because he's  _him_  – Star City’s mayor and resident tall, dark, and mysterious –  _not_  because he had just spent three minutes analyzing the pros and cons of ridable bouncy balls, so he raises his eyebrow at them and plasters his signature frown on his face before turning away.

He knows the effects of that are dimmed by the toddler propped up on his shoulders and the other wrapped around his leg – knows that Dig with Sara on his hip and a pack of princess pull ups clutched in his hand do a number on their reputation.

He can care less, though, because while the trip to the store had been for candy, the whole plethora of possibilities that the store laid out for the kids had them tired out in a heartbeat. After ten minutes in the soup isle, Sara had knocked out in Dig's arms, and Oliver can feel Tommy getting heavier and heavier against his leg.

A victory is so close the two men can almost taste it. Unfortunately for them, the youngest Queen is still very much awake, and very much lacking the taste of candy.

She pulls Oliver's face upwards so that he can see her, and he is almost startled by how much her glare and small pout resembles his wife.

"Chocolate," she demands sweetly before patting his cheek and readjusting his head to see the food aisles.

"Damn, it's a little Felicity on your shoulders," Dig murmurs.

Oliver flashes him a grin.

“Tell me about it.”

 

*******

As much Oliver likes to think that his physique is far above average, he can't help but feel the burn in both of his arms from carrying two sleeping toddlers. Part of him is so, so proud at how big and strong his two little mini me's seem to be getting.

The other half of him is sad that they don't fit, diaper clad butts and all, into the crook at his elbow anymore, but he spends most of his time squishing that feeling down before he feels like crying.

He struggles with the lock for a good two minutes before realizing that Dig is standing right behind him, lazily leaning against the wall with Sara in one arm and a bag of groceries in the other.

"One of us," Oliver starts, "can put down something we're carrying without risking a tantrum," Oliver rolls his eyes, turning to face his best friend.

He lets out a laugh when he sees the arm that Sara is cradled in moving before Dig realizes it's the wrong choice, and it's Dig's turn to roll his eyes at Oliver.

Oliver adjusts his grip on his two babies, resting his nose against Tommy's forehead. He's over the moon that they don't have to struggle to get them down for a nap, but him and Dig have found that their main source of entertainment over the past four years have come from the sleeping hurricanes in their arms. Finding something worthwhile to do with them asleep almost equates to finding water in a desert nowadays, or willful common sense in Dig's brain.

So, naturally, they take a nap too, and it's only when it's nearing midnight and the kids have eaten their way through half the candy bag that they realize sleeping through the day is a terrible, terrible idea.

"Oi! Watch the nose!"

"Sorry, Unca Dig!"

"Sara, take that out of your mouth, I don't care if it looks like a fish stick."

"Anya, you too! What did your Dad just tell Sara?!"

"I want a fish stick," Tommy babbles, straightening from his position balancing on Dig's chest. He'd convinced his uncle to lay flat and still like a log for the last ten minutes and while Dig has appreciated the bruising his ribs have endured from their short stint as a trampoline, he's soon scooping up his god son and plopping him on his father's lap.

"Your turn, big guy."

Oliver watches as Tommy rolls – literally rolls, curled up and all – off of him and into Anya. She yelps as she's knocked into Oliver's waiting arms and he quickly pulls her into him and blows on her belly before she can turn her Felicity stained frown and seething eyes onto her brother.

He had Thea growing up, but they were years apart in age, and the way he watches his two children go at it scares him half to death.

Felicity said it was normal for them to fight, but he still can't get the image of Anya damn near smothering Tommy with a pillow last month out of his head.

"Okay," he says, voice raised and laced with the very tone of every parent hoping to avoid a sibling induced outburst. "How about we watch a movie, huh?"

"I like moviesth," Anya whispers as her eyes go wide. Oliver nods along with his daughter and his grins at her from ear to ear at her small lisp.

Oliver knows he's gonna pay for this tomorrow – it's already midnight and the kids are offering no sign of fatigue. Unfortunately, the nap him and Dig took did nothing to quell the perpetual state of exhaustion the two of them had fallen into ever since Sara was born, and they're out within minutes of the film.

It doesn't help that halfway through " _The Grand Adventures of Chuck the Hippopotamus_ ," Sara figures out how to change the channel. It also doesn't help that the next channel over is screening a horror film.

Oliver only wakes when a clap of thunder rings through the apartment, and though he's startled by the sudden change in weather, he's even more surprised by the grinning clown that is staring eerily back at him.

" _What the fuc-,"_

He stops midsentence when he catches sight of three little faces peering wide eyed and open mouthed at the screen. They look half in awe and half scared to death, and Oliver is thankful that each tiny tooshie has a pullup strapped tightly to it.

He quickly reaches from his place on the floor to the remote, shutting the screen off just as the clown opens his mouth wide to reveal jagged like teeth.

Three sets of eyes turn to stare at him, and he kicks Dig awake before jumping up and turning on all the living room lights.

He thanks every god up in the sky for blessing the three children in front of him with the shortest attention spans, because while he is turning on the lights and making sure his heart was still beating properly, Tommy has dragged what is left of the candy back over to the trio.

"Alright, okay, let's save that for later," Oliver reaches down and swoops the bag of candy out of reach of toddling hands, raising his eyebrow at Dig as he starts to pout. "Bedtime."

He scoops up Anya when he sees her eyes start to droop, and holds his hand out for Tommy and Sara. Sara groggily pads over to her godfather, but Tommy sits still as stone, staring at Oliver with an unwavering frown.

"Uh uh," he says, shaking his head.

"What do ya mean 'uh uh'?" Oliver asks, raising his eyebrows and angling his body towards his son.

Oliver knows without a doubt that the boy in front of him is every bit Felicity, despite the blue eyes and brown hair that reflect his own.

Tommy’s chubby arms have folded tightly across his chest, and he purses his lips ever so slightly in the same exact way Felicity does whenever she's about to tell Oliver off.

"I'm not going in there," Tommy says matter-of-factly, glancing at the darkened hallway leading to the bedrooms. "There'sth a monsther in there. Anya can go."

"First of all," Oliver says, straining to keep from laughing at his son, "You're supposed to look out for your baby sister, not offer her up as monster bate."

"I'm not a baby - ," Oliver playfully covers his daughter's yawning mouth.

"Second of all, what do you mean there's a monster in there?"

"I heard it last night," Tommy whispers, crawling closer to his father as he glances back at the dimmed hallway.

"You heard it last night," Oliver deadpans back, wearily looking at Dig. Oliver plops  back down on the couch next to Dig, adjusting Anya on his lap, and grabs the leftover apple juice on the table.

He pulls the straw into his mouth, tilting his head at his son in question.

"What did you hear?" Dig prompts.

Oliver can hear the slight waver in his voice and, to be honest, he can't help but feel a little scared himself. He loves horror movies – heck, he and Felicity make a thing out of dimming the lights and seeing who yelps first – but to wake up with a clown damn near breathing down your neck is crossing the line, even for him.

"It was in Mommy's and Daddy's room," Tommy whispers, and Oliver can feel his ears turning red.

"Ohhh, it was in Mommy's and Daddy's room, huh?" Dig says, smiling from ear to ear and glancing at Oliver with glinting eyes.

"Uh huh. Anya and I thought it was a ghosth, but it knocked on the wallsth too. Hasth to be a monsther."

"Knocked on the walls, huh? So  _that's_  where that bruise is from," Dig pokes at Oliver's collar bone. "Workin' on making another little imp, are we -," Oliver presses his palm firmly to his friend's mouth, not even glancing his way as he takes another sip of apple juice out of his daughter's sippy cup.

He takes a deep breath before turning to face his son.

"Baby, there's no monster there."

"Yuh huh."

"Nah ah."

"Yes huh."

"No huh."

"YUH HUH."

"NUH - ," Oliver clasps his lips together, thanking the part of his brain that houses maturity for interrupting his argument with his son. He doesn't know how he will face old Mrs. Porter from downstairs if she hears him getting into another round of "yuh-huh, nah-ah" banter in the middle of the night.

"Uh hu -," Dig begins to moan – almost graphically, and Oliver slams his hand against his mouth so hard the apple juice in Anya's non-spillable sippy cup comes flying out all over Dig's face.

Oliver can see the glint of mischief in his eyes, but his own desire to dump the bag of skittles on Dig is tempted away by the feel of Anya grabbing up Oliver's shirt in a small fist.

He glances down at his little girl, smiling broadly at the action. When she had been born and Oliver had felt he like wasn't around enough because of his position as mayor and his nightly job – when she was so young that the only way for him to truly bond with her was just for him to  _be there_ – Oliver had cherished those little grabs with all of his being.

He yelps quickly, though, when Dig empties the contents of Anya's sippy cup all over his head. The cool liquid hits his baby girl's face, and the small fist crinkling his t-shirt that he had found so endearing only seconds earlier flashes up at lightning speed and nails him in the nose. Oliver groans, hearing the snap.

"Well damn, man. Felicity is going to lose her shit when she finds out Anya  _broke your fucking nose._ "

*******

Oliver's head kills, and he's starting to wish he never sees candy again because the kids won't settle down to sleep and Dig has convinced them that the bed is a trampoline.

Oliver wouldn't be half as irritated if Anya hadn't nearly been kicked in the eye by a rogue foot. He glances down at his watch, barely seeing past the frozen bag of peas pressed to his nose, and groans when he's greeted with a flashing  _1:14._

"Alright," he growls, sternly but playfully "Bedtime."

Oliver might as well be the stuffed bear that Tommy had insisted on peeing on for the better half of a month with the way they acknowledge him. He catches his daughter’s eye.

"Anya Moir-,"

Anya’s eyes widen at the mention of her full name. Mommy and Daddy never use it – never call her anything but Anya or Bug– unless she's in trouble. She doesn't really care after a second, though, because Tommy is jumping next to her with bright eyes.

Oliver just shakes his head, "Watch them," he tells Dig. Dig glances up at Oliver, and Oliver swears that Dig looks like about to jump on the bed with the kids.

He stalks out of the room, grabbing the walkie talkies Felicity had bought the kids for when they visit him at work – “they’ll feel so _official_ Oliver, they’ll love them!” - from his bedside table, before walking back to the chaos. Anya giggles when he catches her father's playful eye, and Dig raises an eyebrow.

"Catch."

Dig snags the walkie talkie from the air, staring in confusion before a smile flashes over his face. He slips the device under the bed and strolls out of the room with a slight grin tugging at his lips.

"Alright, love you guys," Oliver says loudly. " _Night night_."

He watches them all calm down slightly, plopping down on their sea of pillows and mattresses and staring at him with wide eyes. He shuts off the light and their three small nightlights light up their faces.

"Night night, Daddy. Night night Diggy" Anya says softly.

"Nighty, Dada," Tommy chimes in pleasantly, looking anything but tired.

"Love you, Daddy!” Sara calls out. “Don’t let bugs bite you Uncle Ollie!"

Oliver sees the burst of laughter waiting to come from the three, and he knows full well that the three toddlers have no intention of falling asleep.

"Goodnight.  _Behave_ ," Oliver says one least time before shifting his gaze. "And goodnight, monster under the bed," Oliver says sweetly, trying to contain his own swell of laughter.

The three kids look at him, half in annoyance and half in suspicious terror. Oliver can hear Dig's voice crackle over the walkie talkie.

" _Goodnight_."

Oliver doesn't think he's ever seen three onesie clad backsides move so fast into bed and under the sheets.

*******

And so, in retrospect, it really  _wasn't_  their brightest idea to tell them that monsters lived under their bed.

Oliver realizes this when his already bruising nose takes another strike of tragedy from Tommy's frantic elbow. He hears them the second they open his bedroom door – can hear the pitter patter of two sets of little feet sprinting down the hall and the swing of the door.

"Daddy!"

The two smallest Queens dive onto Oliver before he can even fully wake up, but soon enough he's pressing tired kisses all over their scared faces and whispering a laughing "sorry, babies" into their hair.

He turns slightly on his back, Anya laying smooshed to his chest and Tommy curling up in the crook of his arm. He snuggles them close and pulls the blanket tight around them.

"Sara?" he asks sleepily.

"Uncle Diggy," Tommy mutters tiredly. "The monster, daddy - ,"

"Will  _only_  eat Uncle Diggy."

Tommy smiles contently, before Oliver presses one last kiss to each toddler's forehead and pulling them close.

If only he had an armful of Felicity too.

*******

Oliver doesn't know when they wake up – all he knows is that it's still storming like crazy and nothing much between the night and the day has changed. It's dark and grey and gloomy outside, and the way the tree branches keep tapping against the windows doesn't help the kids believe anything less than a monster is prowling around the apartment.

Anya had spent the better half of the morning clinging to some part of Oliver. When his arm goes numb, she latches herself onto his leg, not budging as he moves around kitchen. It's when the power flickers for a second and the apartment is filled with yelps and whimpers that Oliver comes to realize it's either he finds a way to completely erase this monster prank fuckery from the kids' minds or face Felicity and Lyla and their highest level of mama bear.

"Okay, okay," Oliver crouches down eye-level with the three kids as the power flicks back on. "How 'bout we paint the walls in your room and Mommy's and Daddy's room with the special anti-monster paint from the store, yeah? That way we'll be safe forever and ever and ever."

Dig squats down as well, pulling his nephew close to him.

"We can even use your dad’s favorite color that Felicity will love so,  _so_  much."

*******

"I fucking hate you," Oliver whispers through gritted teeth at Dig. He presses the paint roller into the tin full of vibrant, hot pink paint before slathering the walls once more. What makes it worse is that they had to buy about a thousand kid friendly arts and crafts paints so that he wouldn't knock his kids out with paint fumes. Not only does the color look horrible, Oliver thinks he's literally ruining the walls with the water washable garbage.

He glances at the diaper clad toddlers running around with pink splattered bodies and sticky orange juice hands getting paint absolutely everywhere and on everything. Anya sits happily on her father's shoulders, toying with an unopened bottle of the craft's paint, completely oblivious to her dad's scowl and gruntled words.

"Pink  _fucking_ paint, you motherfucker."

"God, I am a visionary."

"You are the worst."

"A true mastermind."

"Felicity and Lyla are never, ever leaving us alone ever again. Not with the kids. Not with ourselves."

"Felicity would have come to that decision regardless of the paint. Your three-year-old  _child_  broke your nose."

"Yeah, 'cause you thought we'd all take a shower in apple juice you idiot.”

"Hey, you were the one that splashed me first, I thought you wanted to play, I was just following the signals- ,"

"Dear god Felicity, Thea told me they used to take baths together when the kids were babies, but if they still shower together…"

Oliver hunches his shoulders and screws his eyebrows together as he hears Lyla’s voice sound uncertainly from around just outside the bedroom.

Dig turns around completely unphased as the kids sprint over to the women with toothy smiles.

"For your information, I would not be opposed to still doing that, I honestly don't know why we stopped. Oliver?"

Oliver turns around slowly, memories of the numerous bath times where Tommy, Sara, and Anya had moved around so much the two men had to climb in with them just to keep them still flashing through his head.

He wants to paint a strip over Dig's mouth but he stops short when he sees Felicity round the corner, eyes going wide and mouth dropping in a deep gasp.

" _What happened to your face?"_

"Anya punched me."

" _Why is the house pink?"_

"Monster repellent, come on Felicity."

" _Please,_ please _tell me that paint washes out of hair."_

"What? – AHH."

Oliver gags as pink paint seeps down his forehead and into his mouth. He loves his kids – he  _really really_  does. He just can't believe that his life went from stressful, life threatening situations to eating hot pink monster paint faster than he can grab the paint bottle from Anya's tiny hands. She bends and pats his cheek innocently.

"That way the monster in your room can't get you when you're protecting Mommy, Daddy." Anya pieces together sweetly. "We always hear the monster in your room when it's weally  _weally_  late."

Lyla lets out an immature snort as Dig raises his eyebrows suggestively.

Felicity flushes bright red.

Oliver's cheeks stain pink.

So does his hair. 

" _Oh, for fuck's sake."_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please please please let me know what you think and if you want anything more like this!!  
> Sorry for any typos!


End file.
